AOL Gets Into User Generated Domain Name Speculation
from the finally-taking-over-the-world dept
Now that AOL has dropped its subscription costs, it's moving to roll out new free features in hopes of stemming its rapid customer losses. Yesterday it announced it would freely distribute anti-virus software to anyone who wanted at. Today it announced free .com registrations; well, sort of. Users will be able to select any available domain for use as an email address, but AOL will actually own domain. There's little to stop the company from, at some point down the road, using the good addresses for their own purposes, particularly if they fall into disuse. So while there's been a resurgance of speculators buying up domain names, they may have a hard time competing with AOL's use of crowdsourcing to discover and register available names.
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... by Erstazi on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 12:58pm
Down with AOL!
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Aol is dying by s on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 12:58pm
All that comes to mind is one of the last scenes in Terminator 2 where the futuristic robot is changing forms in the lavapot (or whatever) to see if it can escape.
The only thing happening from this I can see is AOL trying to sell the domains back to the user once they get fixated on using them for an extortionate (new word) amount of money and pissing off any remaining users they may have.
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by Anonymous Coward on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 1:18pm
leverage guys, its called leverage
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Virus Protection? by Paul on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 1:53pm
How can AOL protect against viruses? They are one. They try to spread to as many computers as posible and then they stop them from working properly. It seems hard to use a virus to protect against viruses.
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Re: Virus Protection? by Paul B on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 2:01pm
Well said Paul, well said!
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Re: Re: Virus Protection? by Ben Damnit on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 2:15pm
We are the borg v9.0 w/top speed. Resistance is futile. Uninstalling is Futile. You will be assimalated.
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by Anonymous Coward on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 2:17pm
That was molten lead.
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by Anonymous Coward on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 2:21pm
AOL is dying a slow death. Should that happen...
DIBSIES ON THE AOL DOMAINS!!
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by Rick on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 3:42pm
Great!
Now I definintely hate AOL.
This should fall under some sort of domain squatting law I hope....
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Re: Virus Protection? by john ashcroft on Aug 9th, 2006 @ 5:05pm
Not true, it has been the case several times in the past that a virus will actively seek and destroy other virii it finds on the system that may interfere with it's own operations. While this may all seem like semantecs, it only helps to strenghthen the point that AOL is itself a virus. The only missing piece of the puzzle here is that by definition a virus is software that causes harm, self replicates and carries a destuctive payload...hold on...all these are true as well.
conclusion:AOL is a virus.
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by Sohrab on Aug 10th, 2006 @ 2:32am
seems like AOL is taking some interesting measures.
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by Crowdsource on Aug 10th, 2006 @ 1:52pm
This isn’t a good example of crowdsourcing. It’s not even a good idea!
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by Angela Ciccone on Dec 1st, 2006 @ 11:05am
They stole my domain. I want it back!!! I need it. My livelihood is being adversely affected by this. I have bills to pay. There must be a law against this. If not, we need one.
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